The T'an ching, [a] or Platform Sutra, has been a volume of immense popularity among the Ch'an Buddhists
of East Asia for many centuries. Purported to be the teaching of the Sixth Patriarch
of the Southern School of Ch'an, it has achieved the highest status possible
for a Buddhist text by being awarded the title of ching [b] (suutra), which places it on equal ground with the words attributed directly
to the Buddha. In the latter half of the T'ang dynasty, when the various schools
of Chinese Buddhism began to be amalgamated and absorbed into one another, the
importance of Ch'an increased; and as it became the dominant school in China,
the T'an ching rose to the prominent position it has continued to hold right
up to the present day. In the West as well, partly because of the writings of
D. T. Suzuki and the international impact of Japanese culture, Ch'an and Zen
have become extremely popular; and it is not surprising, therefore, to find
the T'an ching ranking as one of the best known of all Buddhist texts. Because
of its significance for Asia as well as for the West, the book has received
much attention from both researchers and translators. The following comments
will attempt to provide a summary of the work that has been done on the text
by surveying some of the major textual and historical scholarship and evaluation
the various English translations.

For the past 500 years the
T'an ching, known and studied in China, has been a version of the text included
in the Ming dynasty edition of the Buddhist canon (1440). [1] This version represents the work of a Yuan dynasty monk named Tsung-pao [c],
who produced a new edition of the text in 1291 on the basis of three different
manuscripts. [2] In 1900 another version of the
text was discovered in the famous Buddhist cave library at Tun-huang [d].
The exact date of this manuscript is unknown but it is considered by scholars
to be a work of the last years of the T'ang dynasty. [3] Thus, it is the earliest extant copy of the T'an ching, dating back perhaps
to within a century-and-a-half of the death of the Sixth Patriarch (713). Naturally,
the discovery of this ancient text created great excitement in the scholarly
world, and precipitated a thorough reevaluation of the history of the work.

The Tun-huang manuscript, however,
is by no means a perfect copy: it contains a number of obvious corruptions of
various sorts. Consequently, the text cannot be read without considerable editing.
Fortunately, two other early copies related to the Tun-huang manuscript were
discovered in Japan in the 1930s. One is known as the Koshoji text [e],
a Northern Sung printed copy probably derived ultimately from an edition, no
longer extant, done in 967. The other, known as the Daijoji text [f],
is a handwritten manuscript traditionally attributed to the Japanese Soto Zen
patriarch Dogen [g] (1200-1253). The exact historical
relationship between these two is not clear; in general, however, they are quite
similar and appear to represent a textual tradition not too different from the
Tun-huang text. Hence, they are of great value
in determining the reading of the Tun-huang manuscript. [4]

A comparison of the text discovered
at Tun-huang with the version published in the Ming canon reveals the extent
to which the T'an ching changed over the course of more than four centuries.
The Ming canon edition is almost twice the length of the earlier work; adding
much new material and omitting certain sections, it also considerably rearranges
the order of the content, and in general refines and elaborates the text. These
changes do not necessarily originate in the Ming canon text itself; some can
be traced to earlier versions. Moreover, the possibility remains open that there
were other versions of the T'an ching in circulation even at the time when the
Tun-huang text was copied. This means that the precise historical relationship
between the earliest and latest versions of the work now known to us cannot
be determined exactly. Still, the discovery of the other early texts such as
the Koshoji and Daijoji has made it clear that the Ming canon edition represents
the final stage in a long and gradual process of textual development. [5]

Despite their many differences,
the Tun-huang and Ming canon versions do not seriously conflict in basic doctrinal
content. Yet certain of the differences are significant in that they reflect
changing attitudes toward the text and its message. For example, the Tun-huang
version devotes considerable space to emphasizing the correct transmission of
the T'an ching. In these sections (38, 47, 55-57) a description of the complier
Fa-hai [h] and his lineage is recorded, and the
transmission of the text itself is said to verify the transmission of the dharma.
These sections have been entirely dropped from the Ming canon edition, suggesting
that the status of the text changed, over the years, from that of an esoteric
document to be handed down from master to disciple as a sign of initiation into
the true understanding of the doctrine, to that of a popular religious treatise
available to all the interested.

The Tun-huang text also emphasizes
the importance of the "Formless Precepts." The title itself refers
to these precepts, and the structure of the Tun-huang version is clearly organized
around the ceremony in which they are given. The text (sections 20-23) not only
outlines this ceremony but includes instructions for those who participate in
it. The word "platform," (t'an [i]), by
which the text is known, probably refers to the ordination platform (chieh-t'an [j]) especially constructed for this ceremony. [6] Little is known of the details of such rituals, but they appear to have been
an important element in the T'ang dynasty religious life. Some scholars have
felt that the Formless Precepts of the T'an ching represent a major innovation
in the interpretation of the ritual, and that the teaching of this new interpretation
was a primary concern of the original work. [7]

The Ming canon edition, while
retaining a somewhat different version of the ritual, drops all reference to
the Formless Precepts in the title and reorganizes the text in such a way that
the centrality of the ceremony is obscured. The section dealing with the Formless
Precepts (Chapter VI) is placed at the end of the main body of the text. The teaching of the
praj~naapaaramitaa and the following question-and-answer period (I and II),
which in the Tun-huang versions represented the final stage of the ceremony,
intended for those who had taken the Formless Precepts, is shifted to the beginning
of the sermon. In this way, the Ming canon edition emphasizes the sermon and
relegates the ritual to a secondary position, suggesting the early ritual features
of the T'an Ching were later overshadowed, and that the text came to be valued
more for its teachings of wisdom and mediation than for the Formless Precepts.

Whatever the interpretation
of the specific textual changes which occured in the historical development
of the T'an ching, the existence of this developing textual tradition is of
considerable interest for the study of Buddhist texts. Few of the major texts
of Chinese Buddhism have been subject to the same kind of development. [8] Although there do exist widely differing versions for many works, these are
the result of different translations from Sanskrit texts, many of which were
themselves in the process of development. Once put into Chinese, however, a
given translation has been handed down with remarkable fidelity. Consequently,
the number and variety of ancient texts of the T'an ching offer the scholar
a rare opportunity to witness the historical growth of a Chinese Buddhist text.

The fact that the T'an ching
existed in a variety of versions has inevitably raised the question of the nature
of the original text. Certain features of the Tun-huang text suggest that this
version may represent a composite put together from several sources. The text
purports to transmit a sermon delivered by Hui-neng [k] and recorded by his disciple Fa-hai. This sermon, however, and the ceremony
which it accompanies constitute less than half of the total text (sections 1,
12-37); the remainder is devoted to Hui-neng's biography (2-11), to interviews
with various monks and laymen and to warnings about the transmission of the
suutra itself (38-57). Many scholars, analyzing these various sections of the
Tun-huang text, have felt that the sermon section probably represents the original
nucleus, to which the other material was later affixed. [9] But there is serious doubt among scholars as to whether this sermon actually
records the teaching of Hui-neng.

In the cave library at Tun-huang
where the T'an ching was discovered there were also a number of texts [10] recording the sayings of Hui-neng's disciple Shen-hui [l].
A comparison of these with the T'an ching reveals similarities too close to
be accidental. [11] It is possible, of course,
that as a disciple Shen-hui had before him a copy of the T'an ching, but nowhere
in his recorded sayings does he mention it. Other sections of the suutra indicate
that the text was strongly influenced by Shen-hui or his school. Section 49,
for example, seems clearly to predict the date of Shen-hui's famous attack on
the Northern School of Ch'an. Moreover, the earliest reliable reference to the
T'an ching, an inscription by Wei Ch'u-hou [m] (d.
828) contains a passage which, though its exact interpretation is the subject
of dispute, definitely indicates that Shen-hui's school played an important role in the early development
of the work. [12] From such evidence scholars
agree that the Tun-huang version including the core sermon must be considered
in part, at least, the work of Shen-hui's school, There is little question that
the T'an ching existed in some form prior to the version discovered at Tun-huang.
A great deal of scholarly work has been done in an attempt to determine the
nature and authorship of the earliest form of the text. Three major theories
have been advanced on this issue.

The first, advocated by the
reknown Japanese scholar Ui Hakuju, has been in general supported by the late
D. T. Suzuki and many other scholars in Japan. [13] Ui held that the earliest T'an ching was made up of Hui-neng's sermon, including
the biographical sections, as recorded by his disciple Fa-hai. To this was added
material from the latter half of the Sixth Patriarch's life, probably by Fa-hai
himself. Subsequently, the book fell into the hands of the Shen-hui school,
was reworked, and a text similar to the Tun-huang versions resulted.

In an attempt to reconstruct
the probable form of the original text, Ui tried to eliminate those sections
he felt had been added. [14] In doing this he
removed, for example, all of the material dealing with the transmission of the
suutra; more importantly, he also excluded all references to the struggle between
the Northern and Southern schools of Ch'an, attributing them all to Shen-hui's
tradition. Such sectarian disputes, Ui felt, represented later battles within
Ch'an which had no place in the original T'an ching. In this way he eliminated
some forty percent of the text, including such important sections as the famous
poem exchange with Shen-hsiu [n] (sections 4-8),
the criticism of the Northern school's teaching regarding meditation (in section
14), the attack on gradual enlightenment (16), and the definition of the Threefold
Training (40-41).

A second theory on the original
text was advanced by the famous Chinese scholar Hu Shih, and is favored today
in Japan by, among others, the Ch'an historian Sekiguchi Shindai. [15] Hu Shih, who devoted much of his career to the study of Shen-hui, came to the
conclusion that it was he who had almost singlehandedly created the Southern
school of Ch'an. Similarities, therefore, between Shen-hui's teachings and those
of the T'an ching could easily be explained: there was no original Hui-neng
sermon and no original Fa-hai text; rather, the entire T'an ching was the creation
of Shen-hui himself, or as Hu Shih later thought, of Shen-hui's disciples. Though
the Tun-huang text is not the earliest form of the work, this earliest form
taught, as does the Tun-huang version, the doctrine of the Southern school of
Shen-hui, and was intended from the outset to be a refutation of the Northern
tradition of Shen-hsiu.

The most recent, and in some
ways the boldest, theory has been proposed by Yanagida Seizan of Hanazono University. [16] Yanagida agrees with Ui that there was an
original text independent of Shen-hui's school; but he also concurs with Hu
Shih that Hui-neng never taught the T'an ching. He points out that a careful
comparison of the Tun-huang text with the sayings of Shen-hui reveals that,
while much of it is identical, certain doctrinal conflicts are evident. For
example, Shen-hui taught a tradition of thirteen
Ch'an patriarchs, [17] whereas the T'an ching
(section 51) gives a list of seven Buddhas and thirty-three patriarchs. Again,
Shen-hui's sayings [18] contain a definition of
the threefold training which the T'an ching (section 41) specifically rejects
as the doctrine of the Northern school.

Yanagida argues that such discrepancies
are explained only by the influence of a tradition separate from Hui-neng and
from Shen-hui's Southern school, but at the same time opposed to Northern Ch'an.
The answer to this problem may lie, he suggests, in the Niu-t'ou [o] or "Oxhead" school. It was this school, he claims, which must have
taught the patriarch list appearing in the Tun-huang text; and it was this school
which emphasized the Formless Precepts and the doctrine of the threefold training
found in the T'an ching. He goes on to suggest that the attribution of the T'an
ching to Fa-hai may originally have been a reference, not to a disciple of Hui-neng,
but to Ho-lin Fa-hai [p], a disciple of Hsuan-su [q] (668-752), the Sixth Patriarch of the Niu-t'ou
school. [19]

On the basis of such arguments
Yanagida constructs the following theory: the earliest version of the T'an ching
probably taught the Formless Precepts and the doctrine of the praj~naa-samaadhi,
as well as the thirty-three patriarchs, all of which can be traced to the Niu-t'ou
school. [20] Sometime around the death of Shen-hui
(762) the work was taken up by his school and attributed to Hui-neng. Hence,
Fa-hai was made Hui-neng's disciple, and the biography of the Sixth Patriarch
of the Southern school was added, along with the material from Shen-hui's teachings.
The Tun-huang version was then, the result of a process of assimilation and
borrowing, attaining its final form sometime during the last two decades of
the eighth century.

At present there is no way
of determining which of these theories is correct, but they are of considerable
interest because of their differing interpretations of the background of the
T'an ching. It was Hu Shih who first introduced the teachings of Shen-hui to
modern scholarship and revealed the extent of his role in the establishment
of the Southern tradition. Under the impact of this revelation the early history
of Ch'an Buddhism has been rewritten, with Shen-hui at the very center as the
true founder of the school of sudden enlightenment and the creator of the legend
of the Sixth Patriarch. Hui-neng himself has slipped into the background, becoming
a barely preceptible figure about whom virtually nothing is known, either of
his life or his teachings.

Hu Shih saw in Shen-hui a great
revolutionary teacher and a major figure in the development of Chinese Buddhism [21]; Ui Hakuju, on the other hand, saw him to
be a petty politician, who had used the name of the Sixth Patriarch to destroy
his enemies. Ui acknowledged Shen-hui's importance as the major factor in the
rise of the Southern school, but he accused Shen-hui of having achieved that
importance by slandering his Northern opponents and distorting Hui-neng's position.
Shen-hui's attack on the Northern school Ui felt to be justified neither historically
nor doctrinally: it was purely a political power
play. Writing in prewar Japan, Ui was particularly
critical of the way in which Shen-hui, who had once studied under the Northern
master Shen-hsiu, had subsequently turned on his former teacher and fellow disciples
in the North. This was treachery; and the early demise of Shen-hui's Ho-tse [r] school was the karmic consequence. [22]

Yanagida's appraisal of Shen-hui
is somewhat different, for he sees him as but one feature in the complex landscape
of eighth-century Buddhism, and his teaching as but one stage in the development
of T'ang dynasty Ch'an toward its full expression in Ma-tsu [s] and his Hung-chou [t] school. Shen-hui was a revolutionary
figure, but like so many revolutionaries his understanding ultimately belonged
to the system he attacked. Alongside him there were others, in the Niu-t'ou
tradition and elsewhere, who were also in rebellion, and whose teachings played
at least as important a role as his own in the growing and changing Ch'an movement. [23]

Thus, there is a sense in which
the Shen-hui tradition seems to be repeating in twentieth-century scholarship
its original meteoric rise to prominence and subsequent rapid decline. More
important, however, is the fact that this continuing scholarly reevaluation
of Shen-hui and of the T'an ching represents only one aspect of a larger process
of "demythologization" of Ch'an history. Textual discoveries, particularly
those at Tun-huang, have provided a great deal of early material with which
to check and reassess the traditional Ch'an histories. The scientific approach
to the evaluation of such materials has provided a method for analyzing and
tracing the development of the Ch'an movement. This has meant that the thousand-year-old
tradition of the Bodhidharma school -- a tradition which took centuries to build
-- has suddenly crumbled. [24] At the same time,
and as a direct result, there have appeared a great many important new questions
on the history of Ch'an, all of which bear directly on the T'an ching. What
was, for example, the real teaching of the so-called Northern school, and in
what sense can it be said to have advocated gradual enlightenment? What was
the relationship between the various schools of eighth century Buddhism -- Ho-tse,
Niu-t'ou, Pao-t'ang [u], Hung-chou, and others --
all of which claimed descent from Bodhidharma? What was the relationship between
these schools and the major doctrinal schools such as T'ien-t'ai [v] Hua-yen [w], and San-lun [x]?
All these questions and more have been discovered in the debris of the Ch'an
legend and have become the subject of scholarly research and debate.

The historian's destruction
of the legendary raises more than just questions of history; it also raises
the sort of philosophical problems not unfamiliar to modern Christians. Buddhist
doctrine, of course, does not rest on an historical message; and to that extent
it is undamaged by any attack on its traditional view of history. Yet, it is
a fact that the Ch'an and Zen schools, in particular, have placed great emphasis
throughout their history, on the importance of the actual transmission of the
dharma from Saakyamuni through Bodhidharma to
the present living teacher. In the Zen monasteries
of Japan this lineage of transmission is still recited daily. The historian's
research raises the question of how that transmission is now to be understood;
or, put more broadly, it raises the question of the meaning of history for Buddhism.

Yet the historian too might
be asked to explain his understanding of history. After the legends have been
exposed and a factual account of Ch'an presented, what sort of Ch'an is it?
Does this Ch'an of history have relevance for an understanding of the essential
Ch'an teaching? This question was once put forcefully to Hu Shih by D. T. Suzuki
in the pages of this journal. [25] To Hu Shih,
Ch'an was a Chinese philosophical school to be understood in terms of intellectual
history; to D. T. Suzuki, the essential nature of Ch'an was an inner experience,
and as such could never be discovered in the bare facts of history. We do not
have to agree with either party in this dispute; but the question remains: What
was the point of the Ch'an myths and legends? Why were they created, and what
did they intend to teach?

Modern research on Ch'an Buddhism
has been going on in China and Japan for half a century or more, yet it remains
a fact that very little of this work has found its way into Western scholarship,
and still less into ordinary educated discourse. A similar situation prevails,
of course, not only for Ch'an but for Far Eastern Buddhism in general: it is
particularly striking, however, in the case of Ch'an, which has enjoyed widespread
popularity and has inspired a steady flow of literature, not all of it bad.
Despite their considerable number, the works on Ch'an and Zen presently available
to the English reader give, with very few exceptions, almost no indication of
the recent scholarly advances in the field. For better or for worse, the Western
view of Ch'an and Zen remains largely mythological; and this state of affairs
is reflected in most of the translations of the T'an ching available in English.

The pioneer translation was
made in 1930 by Wong Mou-lam from the Ming canon edition. [26] This version was later incorporated into Dwight Goddard's anthology, A Buddhist
Bible (1932). [27] For three decades this was
the translation known and read by Westerners; and it became a key document among
the small following attracted to Zen Buddhism in the 1930s, and particularly
among the larger post-World War II groups which took up the practice of the
religion. Although the new and exciting textual discoveries were published and
discussed in Japan prior to the war, there was a long delay before this material
filtered into Western publications, caused in part by the tragic consequences
of the war and the long period of recovery. Indeed, it was not until 1960 that
Wing-tsit Chan brought out a translation of the Tun-huang edition, using the
Koshoji print to make editorial changes in the text. [28] D. T. Suzuki in the same Year published a partial translation in his Manual
of Zen Buddhism, [29] based on his edition of
the Tun-huang in which he also relied heavily on the readings of the ancient
Japanese manuscripts. This was the beginning of a revival of interest in the
T'an ching, and two years later Charles Luk produced a new translation of the Ming canon edition in Ch'an and Zen Teaching. [30] In 1964 Paul and George Fung retranslated
the Ming canon edition. [31] Yampolsky capped
this renewed interest of the 1960s with a scholarly study and retranslation
of the Tun-huang text (1967). [32] Added to this
list of publications has been yet another translation by Heng Yin of the Ming
canon edition, including an interesting commentary by the contemporary Ch'an
master Hsuan Hua (1971). [33]

Two general statements might
be made about these English translations of the T'an ching, First, it is apparent
from a perusal of these works that their general level of scholarship and application
of scholarly skills is by no means on a par with works of scholars such as Ui,
Hu Shih, and Yanagida -- Yampolsky's translation being the major exception to
this statement. Consequently, for the reader of the translations there is little
available to correct the distortions of legend and tradition. Second, though
certain of the translations are clearly more worthy of our attention than others,
taken as a whole they present a fascinating spectrum of the translator's art.
A major religious document such as the T'an ching, central to a spiritual tradition
and popular throughout the entire culture, naturally attracts the attention
of the translators. It is not surprising, therefore, nor is it inappropriate,
that we should have a considerable number and variety of English versions of
the T'an ching. Yet it should be noted that, while translation from the Chinese
inevitably involves much interpretation, the T'an ching does not present the
kinds of problems that one faces in such classical philosophical works as the
Tao-te ching, or in many other Ch'an writings. Compared to such texts the style
of the T'an ching is remarkably clear and straightforward. Consequently, differences
in translation here tend to depend more on the translator's attitudes toward,
and abilities in, their art rather than on serious differences in their interpretation
of the content of the text.

In part, the style of translation
in these volumes depends on the purposes for which they have been made. Wong,
Luk, and Heng Yin are apologists for the teaching and for the traditional interpretations;
therefore, they undertake the task of translation out of a desire to make the
ideas and doctrines available to the general reader. Yampolsky, on the other
hand, falls into the category of translators whose interest is purely scholarly,
and whose work is intended to provide a study based on the philological and
historical evidence. Wing-tsit Chan may be called a cultural "informant"
in that he has spent a long and productive career engaged in the introduction
of the classical culture of China to the West. D. T. Suzuki, in his English
publications, belongs in part to this "informant" classification,
but since there is no real separation in his writings between his Japanese heritage
and his Buddhism, he functions both as a cultural "informant" and
an apologist for the ideas. For translators such as Wong, Luk, Chan, and Suzuki,
all educated in and knowledgeable of the tradition about which they write, one
can sense a freedom in translation style which, on the one hand, provides the
reader with a smooth and flowing text,
but on the other, has the danger of departing
from the original so as to distort its meaning. At times this freedom of style
represents an unacknowledged reliance on the traditional commentaries, and the
translation of a term may be the commentary's remark rather than a literal equivalent
for the text.

In Wong, we often find this kind of gloss in the
text. For example, where he gives the expression, "You should know the
merit for studying this sutra..." (p. 29) the Chinese has no character
for "studying" and this addition has, in fact, changed the meaning
of the sentence. Another example of this sort of translation, as well as of
Wong's free use of poetic license can be seen in the lines from a verse:

A Master of
the Buddhist Canon as well as
the teaching of the Dhyana School
May be likened unto the blazing sun sitting high in his Meridian Tower (p.
33).

The first line seems to be from a commentary and
has no direct resemblance to the Chinese text. In the second line the translator
has added the colorful adjective "blazing," and made the mundane word,
"space," into "Meridian Tower," while the locative indicator
has become "sitting high." When Luk deals with this same stanza he
translates it more literally as:

Real Knowledge of the Teaching and of the Mind
is like the sun in space (pp. 36-37).

Wong's version may be an attempt at poetry, but
it is his own poem and no longer expresses the form or style of the original
Chinese. This freedom of style includes abbreviation as well as elaboration.
A line which Luk gives as:

He who is awakened to the Dharma (of the mind)
without a thought, thoroughly knows all Dharmas (p. 36)

becomes in Wong's translation:

Those who understand this way of "thoughtlessness" will know everything (p. 32).

Christmas Humphries in his preface to the 1953
edition remarks that Wong has made use of "somewhat quaint phraseology," (p. 5) and this can be noted in one sentence which also holds a key to his principle
of translation:

But if you do not interpret my words literally,
you may perhaps learn a wee bit of the meaning of Nirvana (p. 74).

Luk's translation is in many ways an improvement
over the earlier one by Wong. He is a translator who is not generally given
support by the academic community and his work is attacked for being too free
in interpretation and for containing glaring errors. These censures are partly
deserved, for there are
places where one finds careless errors, even of
grammar. A phrase he translates "All Sumeru mounts," (p. 31) can only
be "Sumeru and all the mountains." His choice of equivalents is also
sometimes unfortunate and misleading, as in the line, "does not contain
a single dharma" (p. 31). Here he has used "contain" for the
character te [y] thereby obscuring an important
Mahaayaana doctrine. The equivalent generally used is "attain," and
this attainment or nonattainment of dharmas is a key point discussed in detail
in the praj~naapaaramitaa. [34] These small criticisms,
when taken one by one, may seem pedantic; however, when the number of questionable
passages mounts over the entire work, the translation cannot be accepted without
serious qualifications.

D. T. Suzuki, another of these
free translators, has aimed his work at a popular audience and uses no footnotes
or other obvious scholarly apparatus. When we compare this translation of the
Tun-huang text with Yampolsky or Chan we get the following results:

Suzuki: "You are equal to the
Buddha" (p. 83).
Yampolsky: "Your Dharma body will be the same as the Buddha's" (p.
148).

Suzuki: "If there were not
people in the world" (p.
86).
Yampolsky: "If we were without this wisdom" (p. 151).

Suzuki: "All sutras and
writings are said to have
their
existence because of the people of the
world" (p. 86).
Yampolsky: "All sutras exist because they are spoken by man" (p. 151).

Suzuki: "All
objects without exception are of
Self-nature" (p. 82).
Chan: "All dharmas are nothing but the self-nature" (p. 71).

These differences do not imply that Suzuki has
mistranslated the passages, but they are an indication of the importance of
the edition work he has done. In these examples, Suzuki has relied on the Koshoji
and Daijoji texts, and the result is a translation closer in some ways to these
documents than to the original Tun-huang manuscript.

The most negative aspect of
Suzuki's short selection is his treatment of section 48, where a segment of
the Tun-huang text is omitted without a single indication of this fact (p. 87).
The result of such discoveries is a growing mistrust of the translation and
a constant doubt as to whether it is a faithful or even adequate picture of
the original.

Suzuki shares with the other
free translators a tendency to employ equivalents for the Buddhist technical
terms that are not in general use. In his version, fa [z] (usually dharmas) has become "objects" (p. 82), and hsing [aa] (usually "practice") is rendered "live" (p. 83). Whatever
merit such translations may have in a given context, they tend to hide the fact
that the terms in the T'an ching are to be found, for the most part, in general
Buddhist usage, and therefore to produce a translation which artificially separates
the text from the mainstream
of Buddhist published works. The vocabulary and
concepts of this Ch'an text belong to the tradition of Mahaayaana Buddhism;
and this is an important feature of the work, which should not be lost in translation.
Only when Ch'an texts are treated as Buddhist documents will we begin to see
Ch'an thought as a part of, rather than an aberration of, basic Mahaayaana doctrine.

Despite these objections to
Suzuki's translation it must be pointed out that he is one of the most successful
writers in the field, and his work has proved by its popularity and influence
the importance it holds and undoubtedly will continue to hold in Buddhist studies.
It is interesting to note that Suzuki's work in English is in many ways very
different from his Japanese publications, in which he has established himself
as a leading scholar, producing editions of Sanskrit and Chinese texts, making
indices and studies not intended for a popular audience. Thus, his image in
Japan is not the one he has chosen to show to the English reader.

In contrast to these free-style
translators, we have the example of a Westerner, Heng Yin (her dharma name)
who is caught in an over literal interpretation of the Chinese. This literalness
results in awkward phrasing and often fails to make the meaning clear for the
English reader. Thus we find the sentence, "Just then suddenly return;
obtain the original mind" (p. 133), which in English syntax implies an
imperative. Luk reads this as, "Instantly the Bhiksus obtained a clear
understanding and regained their fundamental minds" (p. 35). Richard Robinson
has translated the same passage in the Vimalakiirtinirde'sa as, "Immediately
they wholly regained their original thought." [35]

This type of translation style
employed by Heng Yin results in some unfortunate compounds which carry little
meaning for the reader: "Nature Dharma Door" (p.145), "responding
function" (p. 164) , "still extinction" (p. 272), and "dust
fatigue" (p. 196). Translation must be more than a mere matching of equivalents
between the original and target language: it must employ the artistry of combining
accuracy with a pleasing style; and it must above all communicate to the reader
the meaning of the original.

The two most important translations
are both of the Tun-huang text, those by Chan and Yampolsky: they are the most
accurate of the translations, and provide us with a complete version of the
text as well as annotations and study. Their approach to the same material is
very different, and this gives some insight into the way in which a translator
by his choice of terms and his exercise of editorial license can give the material
a totally new impact. Consider some of the following comparisons:

Chan: "Calmness in
which one realizes that all
dharmas are
the same" (p. 47). [36]Yampolsky: "The samaadhi of oneness" (p. 136).

Chan: "That is the meaning of taking absence-of
character as the substance" (p. 51).
Yampolsky: "Therefore, non-form is made the
substance" (p. 138).

Chan: "The transfiguration
of the assembly depicted
in the
Scripture about the Buddha entering into
Lanka" [37] (p. 33).
Yampolsky: "Pictures of stories from the Lankaavataara-suutra" (p.
129).

Chan: "Give the discipline
that frees one from the
attachment to differentiated characters" (p.
57).
Yampolsky: "Transmitted the precepts of formlessness" (p. 141).

In these examples Yampolsky's handling of the
text is more literal than Chan's; but of more importance, it is often truer
in style and meaning to the original Chinese. There are, however, a few places
where one might choose Chan's translation over Yampolsky:

Chan: "He wishes to transmit the
robe and the Law to
someone" (p. 39). [38]Yampolsky: "If they wanted to inherit the robe and Dharma" (p.
131).

or where one can question Yampolsky's editing
as in his line "purifying our mind" (p. 128). [39]

The positions taken by Luk,
Chan, and Yampolsky with regard to the nature of the T'an ching clearly represent
three stages in the development of scholarship on the text. Luk ignores all
of the recent research of scholars and chooses to translate the Ming canon edition
because the Tun-huang is shorter and, he concludes, "therefore incomplete." In this assumption he is following the traditional Chinese solution to the problem
of variation in length and content between different versions of the same text.
As missionaries came into China over the centuries bringing with them everexpanding
versions of the Mahaayaana suutras, these larger and more elaborate forms of
the text were received with pleasure, [40] for
it was assumed that the longer version of a suutra was the complete and therefore
earlier one, while the shorter was thought to be a later abbreviation and hence
of less value. [41] Thus, Luk's assertion is in
line with a well-established tradition in China.

Chan's preliminary remarks
to his translation represent an advance over the uncritical approach of Luk,
for while he provides a description of the wellknown legend of the development
of Ch'an, he admits to his discussion the research of his fellow countryman
Hu Shih, which clearly accepts the fact that the text has undergone changes
over the centuries. Willing to go this far, Chan chooses to translate the Tun-huang
edition in order to make available the form of the T'an ching that is closer
to the teaching of Hui-neng. While he has rejected the identification of the
Ming canon edition with the original text, he still holds uncritically to the
idea that the T'an ching records the words of Hui-neng (p. 23).

Yampolsky, following the lead
of Hu Shih and the recent Japanese scholarship, gives space to the new and more radical
approach of questioning whether Hui-neng has a central place in the T'an ching
or whether he has any role in it at all. It is this last approach which promises
to have far-reaching implications for Buddhist studies as well as for religious
studies in general.

If we can assume that the many
translations of the T'an ching represent trends in the style of translation,
then we are moving in the direction of a more literal equation of the English
with the original. This in turn has meant a greater use of borrowed words as
technical terms; so that in Yampolsky's volume we find such Sanskrit words as
Dharma (p. 129), praj~naa (p. 149), bodhi (p. 131), suutra (p. 149), nirmaankaaya
(p. 142). Also the titles of literary works, so carefully translated by earlier
writers are left in their transliterated forms, as for example, Ching-ming ching [ab] (p. 136) and Lankaavataara Suutra (p. 130).
This suggests that there is now more sophistication among readers and a greater
willingness to handle foreign words and names.

For those who read the volumes
under consideration one disapointment may come from the lack of evaluation and
analysis of the content and message of the T'an ching. True, Heng Yin gives
the exegesis of Hsuan Hua, but none of the translators provides an overview
of the thought or an attempt at comparison and analysis. Yampolsky does devote
one chapter to the content, but it is by far his weakest section and does not
make the same scholarly impact as do his other chapters on the historical aspects
of the text.

A review of the studies and
translations of the T'an ching reveals that, while we have made considerable
progress on the text itself, there remains much work to be done in understanding
the sources for, and position of, the text in early Ch'an history. In translations,
although there is still no entirely adequate English version of the Ming canon
edition, we now have in Yampolsky's work a careful, generally accurate translation
of the Tun-huang which takes into account the full range of modern scholarship
on the subject. The scholarship itself, while it has not -- and undoubtedly
cannot -- solve all the mysteries surrounding the T'an ching, has revealed much
about the circumstances in which the text was created and developed. Yet these
revelations, as with most additions to knowledge, have raised as many questions
as they have answered. And it is probably on these questions, rather than on
the T'an ching itself, that scholarly work is now most needed. Further real
progress in the study of the text can be expected only when we have a broader
and more detailed understanding of the Ch'an movement as a whole.

In general, serious scholarship
on Ch'an has tended to lag behind the work done on most of the other major schools
of Indian and Chinese Buddhism. [42] Nevertheless,
Japanese scholars in particular have produced important studies on Ch'an and
Zen; and this material ought to be made much more widely known in the West.
One immediate need, therefore, is for translations of the major secondary materials
already available in Japanese. Along with this, we must begin to have scholarly
translations and studies of many other important
Ch'an documents, most of which reinain almost
completely unknown in the West. This kind of work is well under way in Japan, [43] and the Western translator can surely profit
greatly from the modern Japanese translations.

In addition to translations
there is a very real need for a general history of the Ch'an school. Heinrich
Dumoulin's work, [44] the only Western attempt
at such a history, is so limited and so far out-of-date that it represents more
of a hindrance than an aid to the understanding of the subject. What is needed
is a work of the sort that Yampolsky has begun in his introduction to the T'an
ching, a detailed and careful study based on both the primary sources and the
results of Japanese scholarship. Once this has been done we can begin to bring
the Ch'an and Zen tradition into proper perspective, and to undertake serious
study of its teaching. This study should correct many of our present notions
of the uniqueness of Ch'an doctrine, and reveal its true place in the broader
tradition of Mahaayaana Buddhism.

NOTES

1.
Liu-tsu ta-shih fa-pao t'an ching [ac], T. 2008.
Full bibliographic references for this and the other editions of the T'an ching
can be found in Philip Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 191 (hereafter cited as The
Platform Sutra).

4. The Taisho daizokyo [af] edition contains many errors. A more satisfactory
edition was published by D. T. Suzuki and Kuda Rentaro in Tonko shutsudo Rokuso
dankyo [ag] (Tokyo, 1934). This edition's division
of the text into 57 sections has been followed by most scholars, and will be
used here in referring to the Tun-huang text. For other editions, see Ui, Zenshuu
shi kenkyuu, pp. 117-171; and Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra, pp. 212 ff.

5. For a discussion
and comparison of the various texts, see Ui, Zenshuu shi kenkyuu, pp. 1-74.

10. The major texts
can be found in Hu Shih, Shen-hui ho-shang i-chi [ak] (rev. and enlarged ed.; Taipei: Hu Shih Chi-nien Kuan, 1970) . For a bibliographic
discussion of Shen-hui's works and their translations, see Yampolsky, The Platform
Sutra, pp. 24-25, n. 67.

36. Chan's translation
is based on a commentorial statement and not on the characters in this phrase.
His translation of "calmness" for samaadhi is very weak and destroys
the thrust of the argument.

37. This is taken
from Wong's translation and represents an interpretation of the characters which
Yampolsky's footnote 25 (p. 129) explains.

38. This seems to
be the import of the sentence, with the Patriarch as the subject.

39. The use of the
original character ch'eng [aq] "to present
for inspection," fits the meaning of the sentence and is used in the following
paragraph 6, so that the the editorial change is questionable, even with the
reading of the Koshoji.

40. See Tao An's [ar] thoughts on this in T. 2145-52 b and c, where
he attacks what he considers to be abbreviation.

41. For the significance
of this to Japanese scholars, see R. Hikata, Suvikraanta-vikraami-parip. scholarsraj~naapaaramitaa-suutra
(Fukuoka, 1958), p. xxiv.

42. This is certainly
true for the difficult and complex history of the school after the T'ang dynasty,
about which far too little is known.

43. See, for example,
the find annotated translations in the series Zen no goroku [as],
now being published by Chikuma Shobo.